


The House I Built For You

by tellthenight



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, DCBB 2015, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge 2015, DeanCas Big Bang 2015, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Post-Canon, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 04:14:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4905115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tellthenight/pseuds/tellthenight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes up in emergency mode: he’s in purgatory again, but this time he’s wounded and he is not alone. He has to save Sam and a baby from whatever is out to kill them. When a little dark-haired girl with angel eyes shows up Dean quickly figures out that all is not as it seems, and she warns him to find Castiel if he wants to make it out alive.</p><p>This fic was written for DCBB 2015.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the Dean Cas Big Bang Challenge 2015.
> 
> Thanks to Arnica for the wonderful [artwork](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4936561)!
> 
> Thanks to [YXE](http://archiveofourown.org/users/YXE/pseuds/YXE) for being a great beta!

Dean lay in a twist of arms and legs, and pain streaked his core. He kept his eyes closed as he mentally took inventory of his body. How many times had he done this after a fight? Was it more than a thousand times by now? Probably.

 

Legs were fine, his ankles moved, and so did his knees. His arms moved, but the left one was slow to respond and he could only close the hand part way. The pain seemed to come from his left side and he reached across his body with his right hand to feel around. It was wet, warm, and sticky there and Dean swore. He tried to move but he was held tight in place by bonds he couldn’t see.

 

Behind him he heard a cry and he twisted back to see a toddler with blonde curls and frantic eyes screaming her face red. She was trapped too. Dean twisted back to her and yelled when he did it- pain shot up and down his left side and back to his gut where he was bleeding. Dean recoiled to catch his breath, and tried again reaching with his right arm- the angle was more awkward but he was able to at least get ahold of her little foot without excruciating pain.

 

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ll get you out of here,” he said, trying to make his face as friendly as possible to the little girl He held her foot tight, hoping it would be enough comfort. She started to calm as he smiled at her, but Dean stole a glance back down his own body, trying to see in the dim light what was his body and clothes versus whatever was holding him down.

 

“Hey, little girl. I’m going to let go just for a minute. I have to get out of this to get to you.” Dean squeezed her little foot once and then let go, her cries getting louder again, so he worked faster. He twisted and dug to get into his pocket for his pocket knife, and used it to saw at the cords holding him. As soon as he was free he twisted carefully back to the girl with the blonde curls and grabbed her foot again.

 

“Hey, hey, hey… I’m back.” Dean squeezed her again and crawled up closer to her, ignoring the stabs through his body and using the knife on the bonds holding her too. His vision went a little dark on the edges as he made it through the last one, but then she was free and he pulled her close under his chin. She clung to his neck, crying hard, her body shaking. Dean could hear someone talking near them and he cried out, “We need help! Help us!”

 

Dean held the little girl tight as his vision faded, but he tried to hold on long enough for someone to get to them, to help the girl.

 

“Someone…” He tried again, but the word echoed in his own ears with the baby’s cries and Dean knew he wouldn’t be able to stay awake much longer. He blinked his eyes wide one more time, trying for her sake to stay conscious, and a head appeared over him.

 

“Dean!”

 

Dean only recognized it was Sam as his eyes closed.

 

“Dean! Open your eyes!”

 

He did, but only because it was Sam and he sounded angry. “Take the girl. Get her out of here.”

He rotated toward Sam to hand over the toddler, but a quick flash of pain derailed his plan.

 

“I can’t get you guys out of here. Help is coming, but you have to stay awake.”

 

“Take the girl and go. I can’t walk and they’ll get you too if you don’t hurry. I’ll find somewhere to hide until you come back for me.” Dean closed his eyes again, a little gasp escaping his lips as his body screamed for him to let go.

 

“Dean… Dean!”

 

***************

 

Dean opened his eyes just long enough to know that all around him was dark. A terrifying otherworldly scream rebounded everywhere accompanied by breaking glass, and a lot of yelling. Dean tried to stay calm; they could probably only see as well as he could and Sam didn’t appear to be anywhere close by, though in this darkness it was hard to say for sure. Maybe he had been able to quiet the little girl so they could hide somewhere close.

 

“There! There!” He heard the words over the scream and all the noise stopped suddenly. Dean’s heart started to race, and his fear was confirmed when something gave way with a loud groan and light flooded in on him. He fought the hands that tried to pull him out, and they gave up for a minute. Dean had just started to catch his breath, when a head appeared .

 

“Dean.”

 

“Sammy…” Dean grimaced and pressed his hands against his increasingly bloody side.

 

“You have to let them get you out, okay? They’ll help you. Don’t fight anymore, okay? Please?”

 

Dean gasped again. “Okay, Sam.”

 

“They’re going to come in to get you. Don’t fight.”

 

Sam disappeared and the bright light above him was quickly blotted out as one body, then another slid down. They were saying something he couldn’t understand, and Dean closed his eyes. Sam said to let them help, so he would.

 

Dean realized just a moment later that they were trying to tie him down and he started to wrestle again, even though each movement made him pale and faint. He heard Sam again, but from a little farther off.

 

“Dean, don’t fight! Just let them…”

 

Sam’s voice faded out as Dean’s eyes slid closed again, this time for much longer.

 

************

 

Awake. Leaves crunched beneath Dean as he woke and he looked side to side as he tried to figure out where he was. Trees overhead blocked most of the light. He squeezed his arms close around the girl, but then realized she wasn’t there- she was gone with Sam, and that got enough adrenaline pumping to help him struggle through sitting up. Pain shot through him and he collapsed onto his side again, curled up and groaning. When his vision cleared, Dean rolled fully onto his hands and knees and forced himself to push up in spite of the pain, crying out as he did it. He swayed on his feet and stumbled to a tree, holding himself up against it.

 

Inventory: legs seemed fine if sore. The left arm was useless now, maybe broken, and his side was still a bloody seeping mess. He had to take care of the wound, and sling his arm. He had to do it before whatever did this came back. Why had they left him behind? Dean breathed in deep several times in a row, trying to psych himself up for what needed done. He worked his flannel shirt off, which was easy over the right arm, but the left arm made him grunt and groan as he slid the shirt past. Dean looked around for the knife he’d had earlier, but it was gone, lost in the leaves. Dean bit the fabric a few inches from the bottom edge to get a hole big enough that he would be able to tear off a strip. The first one was hardest, the second strip went better. He wrapped the first one as tight as he could stand and fumbled through a knot, then steeled himself for the second strip. He pulled it tight too and got through the knot before slumping against the tree breathing hard.

 

“Shit.” The world was spinning and Dean slumped down further, sliding against the tree and holding his side tight. The pain flashed through him again and he bit back another groan. He clumsily tied the arms of the flannel shirt together to make a sling of sorts. He slid it under the arm first then steeled himself for the pain that would come when he looped it over his head. He swore and went dizzy again, but the job was done and his arm held close to his body. He was sweating and gasping in spite of his attempt to stay quiet. Anything could be out there waiting for him and he had no idea what it was or what exactly had happened. There was no way to know for sure until he could get up and hunt. But it wouldn’t be now or even in a few minutes. All he could do now was try to stay awake and wait for Sam to find him again.

 

**********************

 

Awake. Inventory: full breaths, little pain with each one compared to earlier. Dean reached to his side where he’d tied the strips of his shirt to contain the beeding and they weren’t weeping anymore- sticky, yes, but dry at the edges. The arm was still a problem and needed to be tied better, but he didn’t think he could bear to loop the makeshift sling over his neck and retry it. There was a more than fair chance he’d end up passing out again if it went like the last time.

 

Dean managed to get to his feet, this time with a lot more balance and grace. Everything worked better over all- he didn’t feel shaky or dizzy or like his vision would fail at any moment. Even the arm he had been sure was broken was far less painful. Dean pulled the sling over his head with only a hint of pain and when the arm was released he could move it. It was sore, but he could use it and he shook his head. This whole place was strange- he had no idea how he felt so much better so soon, but he wasn’t going to complain about less pain.

 

He looked all around, trying to find something to clue him into where they might have taken Sam and the little girl, or who it was that did the taking in the first place. There was nothing obvious, but then there was a shuffle in the trees behind him and he hid, crouching low and listening intently for whatever it was that was after him too. Dean forced his body calm and poured all his attention into observation.

 

Every tree felt like a hidden threat lurking, dark and leering against the twilight sky. A thought crept into the back of his mind, and he recognized it now- this place was purgatory reborn but there was no one on his side like Benny had been. Dean forced down bile when he realized that he would have to kill mercilessly to get Sam and the toddler back.

 

There was a faint cry to his right, no rustle of leaves behind him any more. He calculated the risk of moving now, if someone really had been coming toward him, but he finally decided that there was a reason they only took Sam and the baby. Dean initially would have been the easiest to subdue and take because of his injuries, but maybe they had decided his injuries were too grave and left him behind to die alone in the woods. So he went, picking his way through trees and leaves and uneven ground as quietly as he could. The crying was overshadowed by shouting, and Dean crashed forward in response through seemingly endless trees.

 

A blow to his upper back took him sent him reeling forward. Dean caught himself on a tree trunk and grunted at the pain to his arm, but he managed a turn just in time to find his masked attacker at his throat. Dean hit the ground and cried out in pain. Even though he had twisted his body enough to somewhat protect his injured left arm, the attacker, masked and dressed all in black, had crashed on top of him. Dean kicked and fought, adrenaline surging. He reached back, scrabbling for anything that could help him and he found a thick fallen branch that he bashed over the attacker’s head. The attacker recoiled, grabbing protectively at his head and Dean swung the branch again, knocking the attacker back. Dean got to his feet, wielding the branch in his right hand, eyes glued to the attacker who had recovered and pulled a long knife. Dean shuffled a little, trying to see how the attacker moved and he moved in at the slightest bit of hesitation from the man in black. Dean was determined to get that knife, and he went in swinging, first to the gut, then a blow to the arm holding the knife, then another to the head. One, two, three and the man was down, and Dean fished the knife out of the leaves and breathed deep to replenish his burning lungs.

 

The man groaned on the ground and Dean stood over him. “Tell me where they are!”

 

The man rolled to the side and pulled his mask up enough to spit blood and a tooth. “Probably dead by now.”

 

Dean kicked him again and a second time. He spoke again, low and terrifying. “I know you don’t know me, but you should be afraid. Tell me where they are.”

 

The man let out a pitiful laugh, a puff that led to spitting more blood and a groan. “I know exactly who you are, Dean Winchester. Everyone in this place knows who you are.”

 

Dean clenched his jaw. Here. It couldn’t really be… Sam wouldn’t be here and the little girl if it was really purgatory, and yet it all felt so familiar, and suddenly he knew with a certainty where he was down to the exact location..

 

“Tell me where they are.” He barked.

 

“You already know. Go ahead and kill me.” The thing in black- now Dean knew it wasn’t human- breathed in with a gurgle and coughed out more blood. Dean slashed down with the blade.

 

First body down.

 

Dean started walking. That thing had been right. He knew where he was and probably where they were going next. His senses burst into emergency mode, an extreme version of fight or flight with everything in him screaming to fight. He was ready for the next attacker, or however many bodies he’d have to slice through to get to Sam and the girl.

 

He found them at the river, full of flat stone on the wide riverbed. They were only guarded by three, and he did a walk of the perimeter to be sure there was no one else to run in and surprise them. Sam sat with the girl splayed out in his arms in the way only young children can sleep. Sam looked calm and nonthreatening to anyone who did not know him well, but Dean knew Sam had the whole situation figured out. Dean moved slowly, trying to get to a place where he could catch Sam’s eye. It was slow, but the next several minutes would move fast, and they needed as much unity as they could get if Dean was going to get Sam and the girl out of there alive.

 

Sam’s chin lifted only slightly when he caught sight of Dean. Dean motioned to the girl and Sam looked down at her and blinked his eyes twice. He understood his role and that left Dean to decide how best to deal with their three captors.

 

He went in swinging and slashed into the gut of the monster closest to him. Sam shielded the little girl and ducked into the trees behind him. The second monster came at Dean just as he freed his knife and Dean ducked away from the axe blow, catching the monster off balance and taking out its legs. He drove the knife into it as the third monster came at him. Dean couldn’t get to his feet fast enough and his arm was killing him, and he made a quick peace with dying here for Sam and the girl.

 

Dean rolled just far enough to avoid the strike of a blade into what would have been his chest. He retrieved the axe from the rocks and mud and struck at the monster, gashing its arm and then another blow to its body that felled it onto the riverbank. He pulled it sucking and wet from the body and struck again, this time stilling the monster for good. He crawled clear of the bodies and laid down on the rocks, trying to ignore blood and sweat and pain.

 

“Dean.” Sam was standing over him, holding the girl, but keeping her eyes away from the bodies.

 

“We have to go. Get you out of this place. You shouldn’t be here.” Dean grunted as he got himself to his feet. He swiped at his face, trying to get rid of the worse of the blood. “You take her.” He pulled the knife from one of the bodies and wiped it on his jeans. “And this.” He handed it over to Sam and took the axe for himself.

 

“We get in trouble, you let me fight. You protect the girl even if that means you have to run and leave me.”

 

Sam shook his head. “I’m not going to leave you.”

 

“Protect the girl, Sammy. I know this place and you have to keep her safe.” Dean gave Sam a look that dared him to argue and Sam shut his mouth.

 

They walked a long time to get to the portal, but it seemed much shorter than Dean had expected. Sam stayed quiet until Dean said they were getting close.

 

“You don’t belong here, Dean.” Sam said.

 

“None of us do.” Dean said.

 

“You’re in the wrong place asking the wrong questions.”

 

Dean looked at his brother like he’d lost his mind. “What the hell are you talking about, Sam?”

 

“That’s the wrong question, Dean.” They were probably thirty yards from the portal, but Sam had come to a dead stop, holding the little girl close. She rested a chubby cheek on his shoulder and her thumb plugged her mouth while she held tight to a chunk of Sam’s’ hair with the other hand.

 

“Dammit, Sam- what is wrong with you?” Dean rolled his eyes and turned back to the portal. “let’s keep moving before something else figures out we’re here.”

 

“We’re going to go through and I have to tell you the rules before we go.” Sam stared ahead into dead space, and Dean straightened up. He looked just like when Gadreel had-

 

“You’re not Sam.”

 

“I am in here.” Not-Sam looked straight into Dean’s eyes. “I’m here to protect the girl and guide you. You are asking the wrong questions.”

 

“So what are the right questions then?”

 

“There are rules here. You can say what is true.”

 

Dean turned that idea over in his mind but came up short. “You are confusing as fuck.”

 

Not-Sam shrugged and looked down to the little girl. “You shouldn’t swear in front of children.”

 

“God, you sound like an angel I used to-” Dean choked. Castiel had been a giant dick, but he had belonged to them, him and Sam. “Castiel?”

 

“No. You need to find him in there.” Not-Sam pointed to the portal and started walking toward it. “We all go through and the girl will be safe. You need to find Castiel.”

 

“Okay- find him where?”

 

“At the end of the road. Someone will come to guide you if you get lost.”

 

“Is that what I am? Lost?”

 

Not-Sam smiled sadly. “Yes. But Castiel will find you again.” He put an arm around Dean and they walked to the portal. Wind started to whip at them and the pull became intense.

 

Dean grabbed Not-Sam by the arm. “You’ll protect her?” He motioned to the girl.

 

“Of course. I am her protector.”

 

Dean stared Not-Sam in the eyes and found that he really did believe him. He pulled Not-Sam along. “Hold on!” he cried, and they went through all together.

 

 

******************

 

He came out of the portal in one piece, but alone- and still in the fucking woods. He knew immediately that it was not purgatory, the weight was different, the feeling in his chest different. The axe he had tried to carry from purgatory hadn’t come through either and he was without a weapon again. He walked a ways, finally finding a branch on the ground that he could use as a club until something better came along. It was probably safe to go along without one, but Dean Winchester would never say no to a weapon in his hand when he had the choice.

 

There was no obvious path, nowhere where light was brighter or darker to point him in the right direction, so he started to walk. He was going to find that road and Castiel at the end of it. And when he got there he was going to find out what the fuck that winged asshole had to do with all this.

 

His resolve weakened as he walked farther and farther, though, and after a few hours his mutterings became rants that moved into speeches and then resorted to prayer.

 

“Cas... I’m trying to get to you. That thing that looked like Sam said I had to find you, so that’s what I’m doing. But a little help wouldn’t hurt any.”

 

Dean kept walking. For all that Cas had done or not done, in the end he had been there for the Winchester brothers and that was something.  

 

Just ahead of him the trees looked a little thinner, and he jogged as fast as his wounds would let him until he broke through the last of the spread out trees to see a meadow, tall grasses swishing in the breeze and wildflowers blooming. Dean walked into the middle of it, grasses reaching mid-thigh on him. He turned back to look at the forest he had just broken free from, and when he looked back, just a few steps away was a paved road right down the middle of the meadow. Where he had just walked. Where there had been no road before.

 

Magic, mind manipulation, djinn… Dean’s mind started sorting possibilities for how a road had been suddenly conjured to a place where it obviously didn’t belong.

 

“Cas?” He called.

 

“He’s not here. He’s at home.”

 

Dean turned toward the road and startled back a few steps, dropping his weapon.

 

There was a little girl there, smiling at him. Her hair was long and dark and she wore a white dress that fell to her knees. Her serene smile welcomed him warmly, but her blue eyes chilled him to the bone and forced him to speak.

 

“What did you say?” Dean stuttered over his words after not speaking for so long. His tongue was tired.

 

“Castiel. He’s not here. He’s at home.”

 

“Who are you?”

 

She smiled and tilted her head slightly. “You already know that.”

 

“I don’t think so,” Dean said. “I know you’re not really a kid, so cut the shit already and tell me your name.”

 

She laughed at him. “We don’t give names to strangers.”

 

“I doubt you’re supposed to talk to strangers either, kid, but look what you’re doing.”

 

She skipped off, pointedly ignoring him in favor of picking flower. She held their stems delicately in one hand and often paused to sort the various colors into a more pleasing arrangement. She smiled in her work and sometimes over at him, and as he watched her move he remembered a question.

 

“Your eyes are...”

 

“Special. I know. I got them from my daddy.” She smiled sweetly and walked right up to him. She held the flowers between them and presented the bouquet to him.

 

Dean took the flowers she held up and his hands shook. “What’s your name?”

 

“You already know it.” She pressed her lips to the back of his hand and kissed him quickly. When she stepped back she smiled wide and started to walk away. Dean almost called for her to stop, but just as his lips parted. She halted mid-step, frozen in place.

 

“Are you okay?” When she didn’t answer Dean ran to her, dropping the flowers she had gathered for him.

 

“I need to give you something.” She stared straight ahead focused on something that wasn’t there- that absent possessed-by-an-angel gaze.

 

“You already gave me flowers.” Dean’s heart started to race. Everything about this was wrong. While Not-Sam had seemed helpful if not friendly, he hadn’t been fucking terrifying like this little girl with her glowing blue angel eyes. He started to back away from the little girl staring at nothing, and then he turned to run, but she was somehow in front of him, smiling. In his haste to reverse Dean fell backwards, jarring his left arm and sending pain throughout his body.

  
“I need to give you something,” The little girl with the blue eyes said and reached out for his head. He shied back and covered his head with his good arm, but she touched him anyway and a white flash went out between them.


	2. Chapter 2

_“I know you want to leave.” Sam said._

_Dean slammed the door of the Impala and walked around back to the trunk. “I won’t leave you, Sammy.”_

_Sam shuffled after him. “I want you to know it’s okay. You guys should be together. Like... alone together.” He leaned against the car watching Dean unload duffle bags of gear and when Dean looked at him he shook his head in disgust._

_“Get your ass off my car. And we’re plenty together. Thanks for your concern.”_

_“I just… I’m going to school full time in the fall. Maybe you two do something else.”_

_Dean leveled a serious glare at his brother. “I’m gonna’ say this once, so listen to me now. I have never left you behind and I don’t intend to start now.”_

_“It’s not leaving me behind, Dean. It’s… spreading out. Having a little space.”_

_“We don’t need space!” Dean slammed the trunk closed and grabbed the duffles._

_“Dean!”_

 

Dean startled awake. His cheek was plastered to cool pavement and the sky black save the stars. Dean sat up so fast his head swam and his vision blurred with it. He pulled his injured arm in tight against his body, expecting a flash of pain, but it really wasn’t so bad now. His ribs didn’t hurt either. Maybe they weren’t so bad now that it had been a day or two. The sun was coming up again, but the tendrils of light emerging didn’t help him come down off of that dream any easier. He felt all the emotion of it, the pain, the abandonment resurfacing when his brother tried to push him away, except that in his head he knew it wasn’t real. That conversation had never happened between him and Sam.

 

Dean told himself again and again that it was just a dream, just like he did with Sammy when they were kids. “Dreams aren’t real. Dreams can’t hurt you.” The emotions pumping through him tried to argue the point.

 

He didn’t get up to walk for a long while. He knew in his heart that he should, but he couldn’t get up, not now. Not until his heart stopped racing and his hands stopped shaking. He looked down the long dim road that seemed to run all the way to the end of the world. It might just be flat Kansas though- there were places in Kansas so flat that you could see for miles and miles down a road on a clear day.

 

Dean turned to look the other way down the long road, wondering if it ran just as far, and the instant his eyes fixed on the length of it he was overwhelmed with warmth and comfort and **Home**. As if hypnotized, he stood and started to walk. He had to get home. Home was where Cas was if he could just get there. Cas was safe there and Dean had to get there too.

 

The sun rose ahead of him and he squinted into it once it was high enough to try to burn out his eyeballs. He kept walking though, sometimes shielding his eyes with a raised arm, sometimes staring down at his feet as he walked along.

 

When the sun was almost overhead Dean stopped walking. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw motion

 

“Hello, Dean.”

 

Dean turned to the words and almost fell over. It was the girl. She was wearing blue this time- a strange dress that seemed to shift in shade even as she stood still.

 

“Get away from me.”

 

“I gave you a gift last time. Didn’t you use it?”

 

“What gift? You smacked me on the head and knocked me out!”

 

The little girl laughed. “He told me you would see it that way.”

 

Dean let out a frustrated growl. “Who? Who told you?”

 

Only one side of her lips lifted in a smirking smile that seemed utterly familiar. “You already know.”

 

“You can keep saying that, but that doesn’t make it true. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

The girl started walking down the road and Dean stayed in place watching her go until she beckoned him over her shoulder. He didn’t know why, but he did jog to catch up with her.

 

“I gave you your gift, but you have to use it. Do that and then **Go Home**. It’s too dangerous out here for you.”

 

It was Dean’s turn to smile. “So you don’t know me. My whole life is kicking danger’s ass.”

 

“Not anymore,” the little girl said. She pointed west where the sun had settled in late afternoon’s position. “ **Go Home** ,” she said.

 

Dean took a few steps down the road and felt a pull in his core to keep walking, but he looked back to ask again who she was. She was gone.

 

Dark came again, and this time Dean leaned against one of the trees at the very edge of the forest to sleep with the road still in sight. No more of this being knocked out or smacked in the face by a little dark-haired girl. He would sleep on his own terms, thank you very much.

 

He was restless all night and at first light he gave up and started his walk again. He was stiff from the night on the ground, but told himself that the walking would knock some of it from his muscles. The sun moved up overhead and it was midday before Dean realized something. There had been no food or water since purgatory, but he wasn’t hungry. He hadn’t been hungry once this whole time. Dean looked around him for anything that might hint at what kind of evil had happened here. What kind of manipulation was it? Would a Djinn give him a road to walk, a cause to fight for so that he would stay in the dream state? Some kind of magic? A witch’s curse?

 

Dean walked again, the full weight of the problem on his mind.

 

“Hey. You’re moving your arm. You used my gift.”

 

She appeared in front of him, and this time Dean didn’t recoil. He ignored her and kept walking. The little girl ran to keep up, a big grin on her face, revealing a missing tooth on the bottom.

 

“I bet you can use it all the way. Does it hurt when you swing it?”

 

Dean had been determined to ignore her, but when she mentioned his arm he realized she was right. His arm didn’t hurt anymore, and his ribs were aching less too. He stopped on the pavement, gingerly pulled the arm from its makeshift sling and rotated his arm at the shoulder, then flexing at the elbow.

 

“What did you do?” He asked.

 

“It was a gift.” She smiled sweetly, blue eyes sparkling.

 

Dean took a deep breath and knelt down to look her in the eye.

 

“How old are you, six?”

 

“You remember!”

 

“I guessed.” Dean said. He thought again. “Can you tell me a hint about you? Who your parents are or your name or something? Anything?”

 

The little girl with the dark hair thought for a moment, head tilting sideways and a determined look wrinkling her brow. “Let me ask.” Her eyes focused far off and her body stilled like her soul had flown off and left an empty husk, but only a few moments passed before the body was full again and she relaxed and laughed.

 

“I can say one thing if you promise to go straight home.”

 

“I will. I promise.” he said, as if Dean Winchester ever kept promises he made to supernatural beings. “I want to know your name. Your real name, okay?”

 

“You might not like it when I tell you.”

 

“Try me.” Dean said.

 

“You promise to **Go Home** no matter what?”

 

“Yes.”

 

She grinned again, big enough to show her gap. “My name is Joanna.”

 

“Joanna what?”

 

Her head tilted and she looked at him strangely.

 

“You know- your last name?”

 

“You won’t like it.”

 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Just tell me.”

 

Joanna considered him for just a moment. “Okay.”

  
She leaned in and against his better judgement Dean leaned forward to meet her. “Winchester,” she whispered in his ear.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean walked on along the road, his face calm, his mind a mess.

 

_Joanna Winchester._

 

Jo Harvelle was the only Joanna he knew in the entire world, and that little girl was obviously not her. She wouldn’t say anything else when he asked and then she left as he got angrier. He had it walked off in an hour or so, and now he just kept his feet moving. It was easier now that his arm worked right and his rib cage wasn’t leaking.

 

Dean glanced backwards at where he’d come from, the forest that was far behind now. He could still see the treeline and probably would for another mile or two. The only reason he could tell that he had actually made progress was because of the treeline behind him and the one ahead of him.

 

Dean leaned down to retie the laces of one of his boots and when he looked up there she was- the little toddler he had saved, blonde hair curling around her face, fierce green eyes staring wide at him. She appeared to be unharmed now, and happy too. His first instinct was to scoop her up, but he held back, waiting to see what she might do.

 

He didn’t have to wait long; she reached for him. He looked around, like something else would happen if he did, but then he bent down and picked her up. He propped her at his waist and she clung to his neck.

 

“What are you doing back here?” He asked softly.

 

She didn’t say anything, and Dean started walking, holding her. She clung to him so tightly that he barely felt her extra weight, as if you could call her barely there body ‘extra weight’. He wrapped his arm tighter around her, thinking maybe she’d relax and talk to him if he could comfort her enough.

 

He ventured a try. “What’s your name?”

 

Her breath hit his neck in a soft puff as she breathed in and out, but she didn’t utter a single word.

 

“What are you doing on the road?”

 

Her arms squeezed tighter and her little fingers clutched into his skin. She was shaking. Somehow she had ended up here too, and it seemed like she didn’t belong, just like him. Maybe…

 

“Do you need to **Go Home**?”

 

Her little body stiffened and she nodded against his neck.

 

Dean carried her cuddled against him, and soon she fell asleep on his shoulder puffing little breaths of warm air against his neck and snoring a tiny squeak with each breath. He knew her somehow, from some time before he had cut her free. He knew he had held her before.

 

“There you are!”

 

Dean turned behind him and the little girl on his shoulder shifted, awakened by the voice.

 

Joanna Winchester.

 

“What are you doing here?” He asked.

 

“I have something for you.”

 

“Another gift?” Dean rolled his eyes. “I’d rather not get knocked on my ass again.”

 

“Language!” Joanna glanced at the little girl Dean was holding and back to Dean’s eyes, insisting that he get the point.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Save it. Do it, but if you knock me out, so help me-”

 

Joanna laughed. “He told me you’d say that.”

 

“Who? Who is ‘he’?” Dean’s frustration tore out in his voice. “Give me something, okay? I’ve walked a goddamn twenty miles or whatever and I’m still no closer to Home, whatever Home is. And I know exactly one thing- that you show up every so often and knock me out. Tell me something useful for once.”

 

Joanna considered and looked down at the baby. “Okay.” she said.

 

“Okay? What does that mean?”

 

Joanna shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

 

A thousand questions raced through his brain at once and he couldn’t decide which was most important.

 

“I want to know what’s going on, if I can get out of here, who put me here-”

 

Joanna had that far away look again, like she’d stepped out of her body for a moment and then back in. “I can build you a bridge.”

 

Dean blinked at her. “A bridge.”

 

“I’ll pull together what I can and build you a bridge.”

 

Before Dean could find an appropriately flippant remark Joanna stepped close and reached for the little girl in Dean’s arms. The toddler squirmed against Dean, leaning arms outstretched, and Dean reluctantly handed her over.

 

“What are you going to do with-” he started, but Joanna put her fingers to his head and his brain fired with memories of Castiel, literal sparks, angel wings, angel blade, a human Castiel learning to live on his own. Castiel’s grace fading and recovered, Castiel forgiving him again and again, coming to live in the bunker, Sam and Castiel and Christmas and...

 

Dean sank to his knees as he remembered, the weight of it burying him. When he finally raised his head he was breathing like he’d been running for miles and his shirt was drenched in sweat.

 

 _Castiel._ They fought their way back to brotherhood after so much pain and grief. Of course Castiel and Sam were working to get him out.

 

“Cas,” he managed to say as tears started down his cheeks.

 

“Yes,” Joanna said softly.

 

“Cas didn’t put me here, he’s getting me out of here.”

 

She nodded.

 

“And he sent you to help me.”

 

Joanna nodded again, bouncing the baby up and down.

 

Dean thought for a moment. He could say true things- that’s what Not-Sam had said. “Sam is working on it too.”

 

“Yes.” Joanna brushed the toddler’s blonde whispy curls back from her cheeks and tucked what she could behind her ears.

 

“I have to **Go Home** to see him.”

 

“Yes. To the home he built for you.”

 

Dean pursed his lips and thought. The home he built. Such a heavy hint, something he should remember, but no matter how deeply he dug there was no fact he could assign to the hint.

 

“The home he built for me.” Dean repeated slowly.

 

“That’s where he’s waiting for you.” Joanna said.

 

“When I get there can I leave this place?”

 

Joanna stayed quiet, instead whispering to the baby as she turned to walk away.

 

“No… don’t go!” Dean said when he realized what they were doing. “Please just tell me where I am.” He gripped Joanna’s arm and pulled the toddler back into his embrace for a little comfort.

 

“That’s not something you remember.”

 

“Please.”

 

Joanna considered, her head tilted, that absent look while she asked permission and then she was back. She smiled. “You’ll see.”

 

Joanna gently moved out of Dean’s grip, and he swept his hand down over her dark hair. She pulled the toddler to her feet and said, “I’m sorry. We have to go. You have to **Go Home** and **Remember**.”

 

They started walking east away from the setting sun and Dean jumped up to follow them, but no matter how fast he ran he never caught up and soon they were gone. He cried when they were out of sight from sudden overwhelming loneliness. He screamed and he ranted, but then he walked until he was cold outside and in.

 

Dean forced himself to work the problem. What did he know? Sam and Cas were okay. They were trying to get him out. Cas built the house. He knew now that this wasn’t real. Nothing in here was real. But it seemed like Cas had found a way to break in, a way to get him a message. He had to keep walking. He had to get home.

 

****************

 

Pain. A flash and a grunt and Dean was awake. He sat up and then cringed back down, curling onto his side as pain burned hot from his side and radiated out.

 

“Don’t move! You’ll pass out again.” Hands pushed Dean back down and he squinted up.

 

“B-Bobby? But you’re-”

 

“Saving your ass. So stay down and don’t move.” Bobby had the shotgun ready, but he wasn’t willing to pop up just yet. He kept still, watching and listening as the gunfire around them slowed. Dean did as he was told. He tried to take a stealthy glance at his side, but there wasn’t much to see- blood soaked bandages wrapped around his middle again, but he seemed like he’d survive whatever had happened.

 

“What happened? Where’s Cas?”

 

“Covering for us. We’re gonna make a run for the house and see if we can hunker down there.”

 

_The house._

 

It was over to the right, a small craftsman painted a soft green. It was out of place in the midst of this gun fight, but hopefully a secure place to recover a little before the battle grew any worse.

 

“What about Sam?” Dean groaned and held his side. More pressure helped.

 

“You’re asking all the wrong questions.”

 

Bobby was sassing him, and Dean tried to reconcile this world with what he knew to be true.

 

“You’re still dead, right?”

 

“Correct.”

 

“I need to **Go Home**.”

 

“Absolutely.” Bobby leveled the rifle and fired. A dozen more shots returned and Dean and Bobby stayed ducked low.  
  


“Cas is looking for me.”

 

“Yep.”

 

“Cas is going to get me out of here.”

 

Bobby frowned him. “I thought that girl of yours told you the rules.”

 

 _Only what you remember._ “Right. Okay.” Dean took a deep breath and thought again before asking.

 

“This isn’t real.”

 

“Oh it’s very real. Those bullets will really kill you in here.” Bobby ducked and stayed down while more shots were fired in their direction. “You done talking so we can make a run for it?”

 

”Yes.” Dean tried to push himself up, but the pain in his side was overwhelming. “I don’t think I can run.”

 

“You don’t have a choice. Either we move now or they kill us both and it’s game over. So what will it be, Princess?”

 

Dean grimaced and pushed himself up as high as he could without exposing himself to gunfire. “Let’s do it.”

 

“Okay. Get ready to hold your guts in. We’re gonna run and we might not both make it. I’d prefer it be me, seeing as how I’m already dead.”

 

“What about Cas?”

 

“He knows where to go.” Bobby looked all around them. “We’re going through our line to safety. They’ve been holding the line on your home until we could get here. Once we get you locked in we’ll all be safe.”

 

Bobby’s eyes flashed angel blue as he heaved Dean up. “You ready?”

 

He barely waited for Dean’s nod before he was pulling him to the house, mostly carrying him. Dean cried out involuntarily as they moved forward and up the steps, but Bobby pulled him along and didn’t stop until they were inside, door closed and locked. Dean collapsed on the floor, making his body as small as possible. Bobby left the gun on the floor and pulled him up again, more gently this time.

 

“I’m gonna get you to a bed and then go back out to defend.”

 

They moved up the stairs slowly, Bobby letting Dean rest for a few short moments when he needed it.

 

“Bobby, who’s doing this? Please. Just tell me that much.” Dean got the words out between gasps as they sat on the stairs.

 

Bobby’s face softened. “What do you remember?”

 

“I don’t know. I was just here.”

 

“You have to **Remember** , Dean.” Bobby lifted him again and Dean cried out. They made it up the last few steps and into the bedroom on the right.

 

“Here we go,” Bobby said as he helped Dean settle on the bed. Dean groaned, but didn’t let go of Bobby’s shoulder after he was fully on the bed.

 

“Bobby…” Dean grunted and pushed hard against his wound. “That was Ellen and Jo and… mom and dad out there-”

 

“On the line for you, kid. Making sure you make it through.”

 

“What is going on?”

 

“Cas is doing everything he can,” Bobby said. He untangled himself from Dean’s grasp and crossed the room to grab a blanket and he put it over Dean’s body and tucked it in on the sides. “Your job is to sleep and **Remember**.”

 

Dean’s head went foggy as pain blossomed in his ribs and moved everywhere in his abdomen.

 

Dean tried to make sense of it all, but nothing was coming together. Last he remembered he had been with Sam, and then… the little blonde girl screaming as he cut her free and a forest and a road... and now here with Bobby and someone shooting at them and...

 

“Bobby… I was talking to Sam before all this.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“When did I last talk to Cas? Can I talk to him in here?”

 

Bobby leaned back from Dean and his face went flat.

 

“No, no, no, Bobby. I’m sorry. Only things I know. I know the rules. I’m sorry!”

 

Bobby looked back at him. “Only things you remember, Dean.”

 

“Um, I remember talking to Sam.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And then I was in the forest.”

 

Bobby nodded along. Dean stared up at the ceiling, trying to think of what he could say that was true, but would get him to the answer he wants.

 

“This place, this house isn’t real.”

 

“Cas built it for you.”

 

Dean thought for awhile and Bobby sat patiently, which told Dean clearly that it wasn’t actually Bobby, aside from the being dead part.

 

“Cas knows how much I need him.” He tried to make it a statement, but his voice wavered and tipped up at the end.

 

Bobby nodded and patted Dean’s leg. “He’s coming. He’ll be home soon.”

 

“Then I can see him?” Dean asked.

 

Bobby frowned at him and leaned over his head. “You’re tired, aren’t you?” he asked, eyes flashing angelic as he put his fingers against Dean’s forehead.

 

Dean couldn’t help it. His eyes closed and the pain dulled and he was asleep.

 


	4. Chapter 4

_Dean’s legs stretched against clean sheets but he kept his eyes closed against the bright sun. This was the best he’d felt in days. His muscles didn’t ache, his ribs even seemed less bruised and he was going to enjoy the soft mattress and pillow for as long as he could. He settled more deeply into the mattress on his side and just as he started to drift off, a heavy arm draped over his waist and a body pressed up against his back._

_“I think we should have breakfast.” **Cas.**_

_“Go for it,” Dean said. “I’m good right here.”_

_“I think we both know that my cooking skills are limited to the microwave and the toaster.”_

_Dean laughed and pulled Castiel’s arm tighter around him. “Fine. I’ll cook your breakfast for you. You can owe me.”_

_“I’m not hungry yet,” Castiel said, and his lips touched the back of Dean’s neck. He reached up to stroke across Dean’s chest and Dean sighed into the touch. Castiel’s hand moved in conjunction with his mouth, down Dean’s body and_ in an instant Dean was alone.

He sat up fast, pain new in his ribs and the room dim with early morning light. The bed was cold and Castiel was gone. Dean raked his hands over his face and sucked air deep into his lungs over and over again. _What was that? What…_

The pain in his side ripped at him again, and Dean shelved the dream to deal with the pain. He got out of bed and went into the hall, hoping for a bathroom with pain meds and a first aid kit. He had to use water to loosen the stiff bandages around his middle, but they still hurt to pull off. The wound itself was superficial and not bleeding nearly as much as it had been the night before with Bobby, and after feeling around he was sure the broken ribs were the source of most of the pain. He put a thick pad over the wound and then rewrapped the whole thing with gauze, trying to pull it tight against his ribs.

Dean kept busy, carefully rolling up the gauze that he didn’t use, methodically repacking the first aid kit, and then putting it back exactly where he had found it. When he finished, he gripped the edge of the sink, willing himself not to think about Castiel. He and Castiel. In bed together. They were close, yes, but not that close.

 _This place isn’t real,_ he reminded himself. _The people aren’t real, the conversations aren’t real, the dreams certainly can’t be real…_ Dean left the bathroom, down the short hall, intending to return to the bedroom he’d just come from, but the door next to it was open and without meaning to he stepped inside.

It was very simple, a bed covered in a purple comforter and a matching plain white dresser, toys gathered in one corner and a teddy bear on the bed. He reached the bed in just a few steps and picked up the bear that seemed so familiar. Just like the message to **Go Home** had hammered through his head for days he felt just as strongly that he should remember this bear. He looked around for any other clue he could find and there above the bed was a canvas where someone had painted the name ‘Joanna’.

What had started as a tingle in his brain became a pounding force. **Remember** , it said and Dean shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

“I don’t know!” he finally shouted out loud. Dean jumped up, the bear dangling from one hand and he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him. In the hall he breathed deep and tried to shake off the word, but it echoed around him. He had to **Remember** to get out of this place- it was his job like Bobby said. Dean pushed down the frustration and returned to the room with the purple comforter to return the bear to its place against the pillow.

_Joanna lay under the blanket, snuggled on her side against the pillow. Her dark hair spilled behind her and her blue eyes lit up as she reached for the bear and Dean took heavy steps toward her._

_“What do you want to sing?” Dean asked as he tucked the bear against her._

_“You always joke. You know what to sing.” Joanna’s words admonished him, but her smile told a different story._

_“So Twinkle Twinkle then.”_

_“Daddy, no! You know what!” Joanna tried to sound indignant, but an escaped giggle undermined the entire operation._

_Dean laughed too and kissed her cheek before pulling the blankets more snugly around her. “Okay. Quiet now.” and he smiled at her before singing softly. “Hey Jude…”_

Dean stumbled back from the bed and the teddy bear toppled to the floor. There was no girl in the bed, no girl to cuddle the bear, no girl calling him Daddy. “What the hell!” he roared. Whoever was running this thing had to be listening.

“What are you trying to do to me? I know this isn’t real. You can’t trick me!” He was saying it for himself as much as for whoever was listening. It all felt so real- in bed with Cas, singing to the little girl- and it wasn’t. He’d confirmed what was real, and this place wasn’t. But Cas would find him here. The girl Joanna had said it and so had Bobby.

Dean stepped into the hallway. When his head cleared enough to work the problem, he thought through possibilities, but no creature he could think of would work a scheme this elaborate. Was it all in his head? Was it another dimension, another timeline? Could he get back? And where was Cas? He was supposed to be here.

Dean had followed the direction to **Go Home** , and when he got to the house the direction had changed: **Remember**. Out of the hundreds of thousands of memories in his head, what exactly was he supposed to remember?

It was a test. It had to be. He had been in three rooms and seen or felt two things that evoked a reaction. Something somewhere in this house had to provoke the right memory, if that was the game they were playing. Dean stood up, determined now. He would look through everything, comb through all the false stories to find the real memory that would get him out of here, or at least to the next level of the test.

Back to the bedroom where he’d slept, he worked through everything in the room in order. He went through the drawers of ordinary clothes, noting that they were exactly his on one side of the dresser and exactly Castiel’s on the other. The items on top of the dresser were obviously false- a picture of he and Cas together outside somewhere, and another of them dressed up… were those tuxedos? Dean picked up the frame and felt his breath sucked away, his insides screaming that this was true.

_I married Cas._

Dean was shaking so hard that when he set the frame down it fell flat. That wasn’t true. _Was it?_ Whether true or false the idea left him edgy and he pushed it down. The pulse radiating **Remember** didn’t slow, so it couldn’t have been the right memory. Not true.

After touching everything in the closet and hanging on the walls in that bedroom, Dean went back to the hall. There was one more room on the upstairs level and he steeled himself for whatever he might find behind that door.

In most ways it was a mirror to Joanna’s bedroom, but the comforter was yellow instead of purple and the bed was much lower. A canvas hung over this bed too, naming Charlotte. Dean felt nothing when he saw that name, nothing like the painful flash to **Remember** that he had felt in the other room. He turned slowly around the room, taking in every detail, and stopped when he faced the door.

On the wall next to the door, just above the light switch, there was a framed photograph of a dark haired newborn and next to it, another photograph of Dean holding that same baby. Dean stepped closer and touched the frame, then slid a finger over the glass. His face was wet and he heard the word through his brain again, but this baby, this picture…

_“She’s perfect, Dads. 8 pounds, 14 ounces.” The nurse announced, going about her work quickly._

_The new baby wailed and wailed at them, her face bright red, partly from screaming, partly from the process of birth, and partly from the way the nurse rubbed her vigorously all over to give her a quick clean up. The nurse wrapped her firmly in a pink blanket and asked who wanted to hold her first._

_“You,” Cas said to Dean and Dean reached for her, pressing her gently against his chest and cradling her there. Cas came in close too, his hand slipping up to one of Dean’s shoulders and chin hooking over the other._

_“She looks a lot like you,” Dean said._

_“For now. Babies change so much. All her dark hair will probably fall out and her blue eyes will probably change.”_

_“I don’t know, Cas. Her eyes are pretty blinding.”_

_Cas laughed. “Blinding?”_

_“Poor choice of words.” Dean chuckled and reached to brush his daughter’s face with one soft finger. “I can’t wait to show her to Joanna.”_

_“She will love her.” Cas reached a little finger to brush along the baby’s little tuft of black hair._

_Dean watched him move with such affection for this little girl- their little girl- and smiled. The baby squirmed against him and he held her tighter, gently bouncing her up and down._

_“Hello, Charlie. We’re happy to have you,” he said._

_Daughter. With Cas._

Dean left that room too and sank down in the hallway as he cried.


	5. Chapter 5

It was dark before Dean even thought about getting up. At first his emotions had so overwhelmed him that he couldn’t process anything around him. But he could feel that baby in his arms, he could see her, feel himself memorizing her features and testing out her name with his tongue. He was overwhelmed with love for that baby and for the man standing with him even as he forced himself to remember that this place wasn’t real, the images weren’t real. Dean dug his nails into his hand and even pressed at his broken ribs to keep himself grounded to his body, to the truth of his situation: trapped somewhere, with Sam and Cas working to free him.

 

Dean sat numb and unthinking for a long time, but now he was ready to start sorting the problem again. He was supposed to remember something. He was having visions when he came in contact with items in the house, but the visions were false, because they didn’t solve the problem. The were so real, though, the emotions visceral and choking. He felt wrung out still after the psuedo-memories from earlier in the morning, and that was the confusing thing. He knew they were fake, but in the moment his brain couldn’t override with that knowledge.

 

Dean stood up stiff and hollow. His side didn’t ache as much, even as he took the stairs down. The stairs landed in the entryway and on one side was the living room and the other looked like a study at first glance. He walked down the short hall to find a kitchen. A small table sat in the corner, four chairs around it and everything hanging on the walls seemed ordinary and almost impersonal. A clock, a calendar with a few events jotted on it, which Dean decided not to touch, a frying pan out on the stove, the counters clear and neat. Dean crossed the room and opened the refrigerator. There was no food in there, and he still wasn’t hungry- the benefit of a false reality. He looked around, for anything that seemed to say, “Remember Me” and settled on the calendar.

 

“Not real, not real, not real…” he chanted as he reached for the pages. His fingers slid down the cheap paper and across, touching each box, but nothing happened. He looked more closely. What did he expect from touching a date marked with “dentist appointment”?

 

Dean sighed with relief and sat down at the table to prepare for the next room.

 

_“You said we would stay here. No matter what.” Cas leaned against the kitchen counter, exasperation pulling his features down._

_“This is Sam. We go with Sam. We have always gone with Sam.” Dean said. He kept his eyes on the table, trying to keep his temper down._

_“Dean, when we had Joanna we said we were settled here. That is what is best for her and Charlie.”_

_“Sam needs us too, okay? I made a promise to-”_

_Castiel rolled his eyes, a human trait he had clearly mastered. “I think we all know about the promise at this point, Dean.”_

_Anger rose in Dean’s chest, red and blistering. “I’m not going to choose between you and my brother, Cas.”_

_“I’m not making you choose! Sam doesn’t need you to follow him around the country. He’s grown and on to his own life and we have a family here. You said we would settle-”_

_“So now we move somewhere else and settle there near Sam. People move across the country with kids all the time, Cas.”_

_“You said that wouldn’t be us.”_

_“God, Cas! Stop, okay?” Dean shouted. “Things change when circumstances change.”_

_“He’s moving for the job, Dean. He doesn’t need you to follow him.” Cas raised his voice to match._

_“Don’t make me choose, Cas!”_

_Castiel leveled a glare at Dean. “So the girls and I are not important enough to you.”_

_Dean beat both fists down on the table with a sharp bang. “Don’t you ever say that to me! Don’t you ever say that!” He jumped from his seat_ and the kitchen was dark and empty again.

 

Dean fell to the floor on all fours gasping for air. His brain flashed in quick succession through marriage and Joanna and Charlie and This. This very real argument that had happened between them where Sam was moving and Cas wanted to stay and Dean had yelled and stomped and ultimately went to Sam’s with plans to stay overnight and cool off. Sam had refused him and told him to get his ass back home to Cas.

 

Real memories in this fake place. Dean’s stomach ached and his ribs screamed and he wanted most of all just to sleep so nothing would hurt anymore.

 

**************

 

“Dean?”

 

Dean’s eye twitched, but it was all the movement he could muster. He didn’t have the energy to expend on another conversation with a fake person.

 

“Hello, Dean.”

 

 _That_ voice made him sit straight up. He looked all around, but Cas wasn’t with him in the kitchen. He found his feet and went to the entry and looked into the study and living room, then rushed the stairs, ignoring his ribs, and searched the bedrooms.

 

“Cas? Cas!”

 

“I’m trying to decide if I should bring Joanna here.” Castiel’s voice echoed through the house and Dean looked all around and above him.

 

“Yes! Joanna! Let me see Joanna!” Dean cried, and as if he’d worked a summoning ritual, there she was, dark haired, blue eyed, smiling.

 

“Joanna!” Dean grabbed her into his arms and she hugged him hard back.

 

“I can tell you things you remember.” She said against his neck.

 

“You’re my daughter. My Joanna.”

 

“Yes,” Joanna said, her voice triumphant.

 

“And I remember Charlie being born.”

 

“Yes,” Joanna leaned back in Dean’s arms to look at him. “What else.” It wasn’t a question, really, so much as an expectation.

 

“And Cas. I remember Cas.”

 

“Not all of it.”

 

“I know, but the important things I remember.”

 

Joanna looked sad then and Dean said one more. A question really, but he would phrase it as truth because he had to know.

 

“Cas knows that I love him.” It was a risk. Maybe it wasn’t true, and she would leave, but maybe it was true and he would have something to hold on to in this place.

 

Joanna smiled big enough to show her missing tooth. “He always knows that, Daddy.”

 

Dean nodded and swallowed back tears. This was true.

 

“He’ll be here soon.” Another attempted question veiled in statement.

 

“Yes. You need to **Remember**.” Joanna kissed him on the forehead and stepped out of his arms. She smiled again and left, marching down the stairs and out the front door.

 

As soon as the front door clicked closed, Dean was in motion. He was going to find the last memories holding him back from getting out of here, no matter what it took. He went to the study first, touching and sitting and trying to think through anything that could be important that he saw there.

 

Nothing clicked, so he moved on to the living room, working the room clockwise. Little shoes left on the floor, a board book abandoned on the table and a toy on the floor. He touched all the books on the bookshelf and marveled over pictures in frames- there was a school picture for Joanna and a few Castiel had taken of the girls at the park. Another photo from their wedding, this one with Sam and a girl Dean couldn’t place in his mind. He skimmed fingers over the tv and over the tops of scattered DVDs.

 

Dean smiled a little when he opened the glass door of the far cabinet to reveal a record player. He touched the edge of it and pulled out the box of records he kept away from the girls. Thumbing through them, he picked one out and put it on to play, taking a few tries to drop the needle just right.

 

“Hey Jude, don’t make it bad…” Dean leaned against the side of the cabinet. At least he could listen to something even if he was alone. It helped just to have something he loved.

 

_“I don’t want you to decide like this.” Castiel said from the couch._

_“Well, I’m deciding. You want a kid, let’s have a kid.”_

_“But what do you want?” Cas asked._

_Dean huffed and shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know, Cas. I mean, the life we stepped out of can come back on our doorstep at any moment.”_

_“I know.”_

_“But if that’s what you want, then let’s do it.”_

_“But is that what you want, Dean?”_

_“Goddamn it, Cas. Yes! Let’s just do it, okay?” Dean yelled back, his frustration exploding._

_Castiel frowned at him and stood up._

_Dean refused to look at him from his spot on the floor, until the silence grew so long that he couldn’t stand it any longer. That bastard could stand and stare for days._

_“I can barely keep from disappointing you, Cas. I can’t stand the idea of disappointing a kid.”_

_Castiel sat next to Dean on the floor. He leaned hard against Dean’s shoulder. “You were a decent father to Sam while you were just a child. With all you know now I think you would make an excellent father this time around..”_

_Dean laughed reluctantly. “You never were a very good judge of character.”_

_Castiel really laughed at that, but as he calmed again, he grew even more serious than before. “If it isn’t something you want, then I don’t want it either.”_

_Dean laid his head on Castiel’s shoulder. “I have already fucked up enough in this life. I don’t think I can stand to be responsible for another human again.”_

_Castiel did not say anything for a long time but did lay his head on top of Dean’s. “I would like to remind you again that you have saved many many people and the whole world at times.”_

_“And done a lot of damage along the way.”_

_Dean could feel Castiel smile against him. They both knew that both of them were right, and that these words had been said back and forth many times in their years together. It was too hard to say if the balance leaned either way. It felt different depending on the day._

 

Castiel was gone then and the house went empty again, leaving Dean and the Beatles behind. Dean tried to hold on to the feeling of Castiel’s shoulder pressed against his, but it disappeared too quickly. The loneliness of this place gripped Dean tight and he gasped against it. He tried to make himself feel as loved and “at home” as he could. He wrapped up in a blanket and laid on the couch staring over at the tv cabinet with all its doors hanging open from his haste to work through them.

 

It was always Cas coming behind him to pick up. Dean would get mad and walk off and then Cas would just wait for him to come to his senses and forgive him. He would yell and rave and Cas would frown and wait. He would take topics off the table in his anger and when he brought them up again with his mind changed around, there was never an I-told-you-so from Cas. Cas had left him alone about having a kid. They hadn’t talked about it in almost a year until Dean brought it up out of the blue one day and asked Castiel to look into it. One surrogacy later, they had Joanna.

 

“Why? I just want to know why _these_ memories? Every time I fucked up with Cas? Yelling at him and… and panicking?” Dean asked outloud. “Send Bobby or Joanna or whoever so I can know why.”

  
But no one appeared and Dean pulled the blanket tighter around him. His eyes skimmed the coffee table and there in the center was a neatly folded paper with “Dean” written on the outside.


	6. Chapter 6

He stared at the paper for a long time. Dean knew it might be exactly what he’d been looking for, but the second he touched it it might pull up any painful memory from his past and send him into a deeper spiral of loneliness.

 

After a long staring contest Dean decided to risk it. He sat up, sniffed and reached for the paper, ready for whatever might happen when it was in his hands. He picked it up slowly, fully expecting a flash to a memory, but nothing happened until he opened it.

 

_“I have never once heard you say I love you to Cas.”_

_Dean laughed at his brother. “Why would I say it in front of you?”_

_“I’m just saying- Cas says it to you and you always have the quick wit comment, but I_

_have never heard you actually say that you love him back.”_

_“What are you trying to say, Sammy?” Dean’s jaw clenched and he couldn’t seem to stay still in his chair. “Because if you’re trying to say I’m just messin’ around with Cas or whatever-”_

_“I’m not saying that. I’m saying you do love him and you don’t say it to him for whatever reason you don’t say it and I think you’re taking advantage of him.”_

_“Taking advan- what the hell are you talking about?”_

_“The fact that Cas is so fucking loyal to you that even if you never say it back he won’t leave you and you know that so you just go on not saying it.”_

_Dean’s chair cracked on the floor as he jumped up and he stalked back and forth fists clenched._

_“You don’t know anything about us and what I have or have not said to him.”_

_Sam swallowed hard, but shook his head in that sarcastic way of his. “What I know is that Cas gave up his grace to age with you and now that he’s human, he needs what every other human needs- love and acceptance. And every time you don’t say it back to him you’re telling him you don’t feel the same as he feels about you.”_

_Dean stopped, breathing in and out heavy as he thought._

_“Did Cas talk to you about this?” he asked._

_“He asked if I thought you would ever return his feelings. I told him you already did, and he didn’t say anything else.”_

_“Shit.” Dean leaned back on the table. “Shit!” He shouted._

_“Just tell him, Dean. Just say the words. You already love him, just put some language to it.” Sam said._

 

Dean stared at the open paper shaking in his hand. A few words were smeared with tears that had fallen on it while he remembered his argument with Sam, but he couldn’t bring himself to read it. Maybe it was better that he was stuck here. If he didn’t remember he couldn’t go home to harass the people he loved the most in the world.

 

 

> Dean,
> 
> You wrote me a letter a long time ago and you know where I keep it.
> 
> I love you infinitely more than I did when I first read those words. Please
> 
> come back to me. I need you. I love you.
> 
> Cas

 

 

 _Just Cas._ Like he wrote him a note saying, “gone to the store, be back soon- Cas.” Dean held the note in his hands for a long time before he realized there was a direction included. He got up, legs shaking, and climbed the stairs. Back to the bedroom, numb against everything now.

 

Dean knew exactly where Cas kept that letter. He sat on Cas’s side of the bed and opened up the drawer to his nightstand. Tucked in the book Cas was reading, the paper was worn on the edges and a corner was bent up. Dean pulled it out after dog-earing Cas’s place in the fake book as if he’d actually use it in this place. He flipped it open, expecting the same flash to a different time and place, another time he had disappointed Cas, but nothing happened.

 

 

> Cas-
> 
> Sam says I don’t say I love you to you because I think you’ll
> 
> stay no matter what. That’s not why. You’re a fucking constellation
> 
> and I’m a broken guy from Kansas. How am I supposed to even
> 
> start to say I love you to you? I do though.
> 
> Dean

 

 

“Hello, Dean.”

 

Dean laid the letter on top of the nightstand and turned to the figment of his imagination.

 

“Cas.” He hadn’t meant to do it, in fact he didn’t want to, but he rose up and crushed Cas in his arms. He knew he wasn’t real, but Dean needed him, and if this was the closest he could get to the real Cas he would take it.

 

“You remember me.” Fake Cas swallowed hard as he smiled.

 

“I’ll always remember you.” Dean leaned back, and examined Cas’s face. It was a little too stiff, a little too young, but still him. This Castiel examined him too, happy with what he saw.

 

“Have you figured this out?” Dean asked. “You know why I’m in here or how to stop this?”

 

“Yes. You have to **Wake Up**.”

 

“Wake up?” Dean yelped. “I’ve woken up a dozen times here or whatever and nothing happened.” Dean paced the bedroom, raking a hand through his hair and scrubbing his eyes with his palms.

 

“You have to remember how to do it, Dean. I can’t give it to you.”

 

“I don’t know what you mean, Cas. I just go to sleep and wake up and it’s done?”

 

“If you remember how.”

 

“Cas…” Dean’s voice cracked, exhaustion and loneliness weaving through him. “I don’t know how.”

 

Cas came to his side and put a hand on his shoulder. “You can do this. You’ve remembered a lot more than I thought you might.”

 

“Yeah- all the bad things- all the fights we had. All the times I fucked up and you…” Dean’s eyes went watery even after he meant to keep himself together.

 

“I what?” this Cas asked.

 

Dean sank to sit on the bed and lowered his head. He couldn’t stand to look at Cas, even if it was only the fake Cas. “You stayed.” he said after a while. “You could have said enough anytime.”

 

The mattress sagged as Cas sat next to him and put an arm around him. “It is impossible for me to leave you, Dean Winchester.”

 

Dean snorted a small laugh but his hands started to shake.

 

“Dean, I put you back together atom by atom. I was privileged to see your soul, and it is impossible for me to abandon it. The painful spots in our relationship aren’t even a fleck on your soul. I may be human now, but I still have my memories, and holding your soul is one of the most precious to me. To be allowed to hold your body every night as well is beyond... I know that it might end at any moment and- ” Castiel’s calm voice broke off and Dean looked over at him. He was crying, sobbing really, but as quiet as he could be.

 

“Cas, Cas- don’t…” Dean put his arms around him and held him tight.

 

“Dean, I don’t have a lot of time. You have to **Wake Up**. I can’t be here without you... we all need you and I don’t know what to do if you are not here.”

 

“What can I do, Cas? Is it a spell, a demon, a creature?”

 

Castiel pulled back just enough to look into Dean’s’ eyes, but not enough to break the embrace. “You have to go to sleep and remember how to **Wake Up**. Can you do that?”

 

Dean stared into Castiel’s eyes. No matter how many times he had looked his husband in the eyes he would never see the end of them, and he was overwhelmed with the feeling that this might be the last time he saw them. This might be the one time he couldn’t pull through, and knowing that, he wanted to remember the blue in case he couldn’t remember how to wake up- whatever that meant. But he would try.

 

“Yes.” Dean leaned down to untie his shoes. He went to the dresser for a tshirt and a pair of sweats and changed as Cas watched. He went to his side of the bed and threw back the blankets.

 

“So I just go to sleep?” Dean asked as he  got into the bed.

 

“Yes.” Cas said softly.

 

“Sleep with me?” Dean asked.

 

This Cas was caught off guard. He stammered and blushed and Dean laughed. “As in actually sleep, Cas.”

 

“Right. Um, yes.”

 

Dean watched this Cas consider what to do next, deciding on clothes from the dresser and changing before getting in the bed next to Dean. Dean turned to him and they lay face to face for a long time, examining each other.

 

“Sleep, Dean.” Cas finally said after a while.

  
Dean nodded and rolled over. Cas moved in behind him and pulled him close, holding him tight. Dean noted every place they touched, every bit of extra warmth and protection there and fell asleep, truly relaxing for the first time since coming to this place.


	7. Chapter 7

He was still there in the morning. Dean could feel Cas at his hip, an arm draped over his middle. He tried to shift a little without waking him, but Cas moved with him, gripping tighter at his waist.

 

Dean opened his eyes slowly, the lids unexpectedly heavy. Cas was sitting in a chair next to the bed, his head the pressure Dean felt at his hip, and one arm draped over Dean’s body.

 

It was all wrong and as Dean woke up a little more he could see that the blanket was wrong and the bed was wrong and there was a steady beep… he shifted again, trying to look around, and Castiel’s head popped up, hair sticking everywhere.

 

“Dean? Dean?”

 

Dean managed a small smile. “Cas…” His voice came out a croak and he coughed. His throat hurt… shit- everything hurt.

 

“Here. I have water.” Castiel kept one hand on Dean’s stomach as he reached away and then came back with a cup. Dean felt a straw at his mouth and he pulled in a small swallow, grimacing as it moved down his raw throat. Castiel put the cup back, then reached over him and came back, a huge smile on his face.

 

“They took you off the vent last night. Your throat will be sore for awhile.”

 

Dean tried to lift his arms. His right arm moved fine and he grasped Castiel’s arm. His left arm, though, was heavy, and he turned toward it.

 

“It’s broken.” Castiel said. “They put the cast on yesterday. You have four broken ribs too. And they took out your appendix.”

 

“What…” Dean croaked.

 

“What happened?” Castiel finished. “You were…” his voice choked and he spent some time pulling his voice together before he could try again. “You were driving to get Joanna at school and you were hit by another driver. You and Charlie.”

 

Dean’s eyes went wide as Charlie’s sweet round face and big green eyes appeared in his mind.

 

“Is…” He tried. “Is she…”

 

“She’s going to be okay. Mostly she was bruised up, cut up from some glass, and…” Castiel breathed in deep, his body shuddered as he released the air. “We owe a lot to her car seat manufacturer. And you. You cut her out of the seat and held her until Sam got to you.”

 

“He was behind us.” Dean whispered.

 

“Yeah. He was following you to the school to surprise Jo. I’m not sure why you didn’t go together, but I’m so glad he was there right away and called the ambulance and…”

 

“She…Charlie. Is she still here? In the hospital?”

 

“They released her three days ago, but she’s been mostly here with us.” Cas’s eyes dropped.

 

Dean raised his eyebrows. “What’s wrong, Cas? What’s wrong with her?”

 

Cas swallowed and faked a smile between tears. “She’s not talking anymore. Not a word, Dean, and she is absolutely frantic when we try to get her in a car. I ended up getting them a hotel room a block over so she wouldn’t have to ride in the car. She’s there with Sam and Katie.”

 

 _Katie…_ Dean frowned. The door opened behind Cas and a nurse came in, “What’s up, Castiel?” And then her eyes went to Dean and she smiled. “Hello, Dean! I was hoping to see those gorgeous green eyes your husband has been telling me about. I’m going to just check a few things, okay? Please don’t talk. You were on a vent until yesterday and your throat will be dry and sore for a while.”

 

She had been taking his pulse while she talked and now she concentrated on it. She pulled the stethoscope from around her neck and put it to his chest, listening to his heart and then lungs at a few different places. When she finished she looked close into his face and smiled into his eyes before glancing back to Castiel.

 

“You were right- brightest green eyes I have ever seen.” She smiled back at Dean. “My name is Mary and I’ll be back with the doctor shortly, okay?”

 

Dean nodded slightly and looked immediately back to his husband. “Mary?” He croaked.

 

“I know.” Castiel smiled. “She’s your nurse during the day.”

 

“How long?” Dean mouthed.

 

Castiel smiled, but it wavered down into a grim line and tears tipped over his lower lids to form two neat lines down his cheeks. “Today is day five. You’ve been awake some, but not coherent until now.”

 

Castiel gripped Dean’s hand with both of his and kissed the back of it. “They said you wouldn’t come back and if you did it would be with serious limitations because of traumatic brain injury. I… I asked for help.”

 

Dean frowned. “What did you do?” he said as softly as possible, and when Castiel wouldn’t look up at him, he squeezed his hands hard, urging an answer. No more ten-year deals, no back-alley bargains with the king of hell, no more supernatural anything. They were out and if Cas had put them and the girls in danger for him...

 

“I prayed to Hannah, and she- she said she would make a way for you to come back to us. She put your brain back together and made a way for you to recover memories and skills.”

 

“What does she want?” Dean mouthed.

 

“Nothing, Dean. She did this for us.” Castiel squeezed Dean’s hand again and pressed his forehead against it.

 

“Cas…”

 

“I’m sorry, Dean.” Castiel looked up, jaw clenched as he tried to keep more tears from coming. “I know we’re supposed to stay under the radar now, but... I can’t be here without you… the girls... we all need you and I don’t know what to do if you are not here.”

 

“You would make it. Sam would help you.” Dean let his eyes slide closed.

 

Dean heard Cas’s chair scrape back and Cas say his name, panic in his voice.

 

“I’m just tired, Cas.” He squeezed his husband’s hand. “Not going anywhere.”

 

“Okay. Um… I should call Sam.”

 

Dean nodded and he heard Cas digging his cell out of his pocket.

 

“Sam? You’ll never guess who I’m talking to right now.”

 

Dean smiled faintly when Sam’s cry of excitement through the phone. Cas talked to him for a little bit and just as he was hanging up the doctor came in to talk with him. Dean faded in and out of the conversation, speaking when he needed to, opening his eyes on command and fading back out as they talked about further tests.

 

The doctor had just walked out the door when Cas patted Dean’s arm. “They’re here.”

 

Dean opened his eyes in time to see Joanna, his real Joanna run in, dark hair streaming behind.

 

“Daddy!”

 

“Slow down, Jo, it’s a quiet place,” Cas reminded, but he was smiling as wide as Jo was. Cas lifted her to sit on the edge of Dean’s bed.

 

“Hey, Jo.” Dean smiled and reached for her, cradling her cheek in his hand. She smiled wide, showing that gap in her teeth, and he gulped before pulling her down to his chest for a hug. “I missed you, little girl.”

 

“I missed you, Daddy.” She gripped his arm and twisted to look up at him. “I made you pictures. My whole class made you pictures.”

 

“That’s great, Jo. I’ll see them when I get home, okay?”  He held her close, remembering the feel of her small hand in his and the way her eyes sparkled just like Cas’s. He didn’t realize he was crying until Jo wiped his cheek. “I’m sorry, baby- I’m just happy to see you.” He said.

 

Cas reached for her. “Jo, let’s hop down so Charlie can see too.”

 

Sam was there holding little Charlie, and a short brunette with a beautiful smile stood next to him. Sam smiled big at his brother when he brought Charlie close.

 

“Dean-”

 

“I know, Sam.” He tried to smile for his brother’s sake, but he really needed to hold his littlest girl. Charlie reached for him too, and he held her as much as he could on his own, but Sam was right there to help.

 

“Charlie,” He said softly, and she focused on him. He smiled for her, but tears kept leaking. “I’m okay. You can talk now…” She curled into him and he held her under his chin, rubbing her back and trying to keep his breathing steady for her sake.

 

Dean looked at the woman standing back talking with Jo and Cas. “That is…?”

 

Sam frowned. “You know Katie.” And then he realized and stepped closer. “We’ve been together about a year. You like her. She’s funny and she likes to take your side if it means ganging up on me.” He grinned.

 

“All I need to know.” Dean’s eyes slid closed again and he focused on Charlie. Her body stretched all the way down his torso, but she clung to him at his neck, just like she had while he had carried her down that long road in his head.

 

“Dean.”

 

“Cas.” he said back softly.

 

“I’m going to send the girls back so you can rest.”

 

Dean’s eyes fluttered open. Cas was leaned over close even though he was holding Jo. “Not yet, Cas. She needs me.”

 

Cas smiled gently and kissed his forehead. “Soon though, okay?”

 

Dean nodded and smiled at Jo. She smiled back, but it wavered some before she secured it on her face.

 

“It’s okay, Jo. I’m going to be okay. Promise.”

 

She ducked into Cas’s neck, but her blue eyes stayed on her Daddy.

 

“Cas-” he started to say, but Castiel was already one step ahead, helping Joanna get in a position to lay on the bed with Dean. Her dark hair tickled his cheek and he felt every breath she took.

 

“You’re my hero, Jo.” Dean said softly, his eyes up on Cas. “You led me home in my dream.”

 

“I did?”

 

“Yep. There was this long road and you kept coming to see me all the way until I got home and then Dad was there and he helped me wake up.”

 

“Was it a long dream?”

 

“It felt like it.” Dean’s chest tightened as he watched Cas’s chin wobble and his head fall to look away.

 

“Was it a good dream?”

 

“Everyone I love was there to help me, so yes.” Dean kissed the top of her head. “And the best part was that Dad wrote me a letter.” Cas looked up and caught Dean’s gaze again.

 

“What kind of letter?” Jo asked.

 

“An ‘I love you’ letter.” Dean said. “I wrote Dad a letter a long time ago to say I love you and he finally wrote me one back.”

 

Cas laughed and wiped at the tears threatening to spill. “I actually say the words, Dean.”

 

Dean smiled back fondly. Cas. All this time with him, and this was what they always came back to. “I love you, Cas.” He bit his lip in an attempt to fight off the blush that would come. “I always love you.”

  
Cas shook his head as he leaned in over the girls and kissed Dean lightly on the lips. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate your comments.
> 
> You can find me and my work at captainawesomeellie.tumblr.com


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